Apocrypha
by lunadatura
Summary: Charlie & Sawyer slash. In the wake of tragedy, Charlie tells the story of the Sawyer he knew. Spoilers for the end of Season One through to the middle of Season Two.


1.

On the first night, he had asked questions – why was I there, why was the baby there, did he look like Mary Poppins – going through his usual bluff and bravado, his worn-out ritual of contempt. He didn't fool me. I've known rock stars, record executives, suburban lovelies dying for a fix of fame. I know an act when I see it. Sawyer had one hell of an act. But I wanted to peer behind the curtain.

"The baby likes your voice," I had said, simply. "And Claire doesn't like mine."

There were no more questions then.

2.

"Slow down, slow down, Chuckie," he said. "You're gonna traumatize the kid."

He had my hair in his hands, my mouth arrested somewhere between his throat and his belt buckle.

"Everyone I know has had a terrible childhood," I said. "Imagine how left-out Turniphead will feel if he doesn't have anything awful to share with his friends."

The baby was sleeping, on top of a bundled tarp in the far corner of his tent. It was dark. In the absence of light, I could still feel him smile. He shoved my head down, gratefully, roughly. I touched each lean inch of him with my tongue.

3.

Kissing a man is different than kissing a woman. Women are soft-featured – there is a give there, you sink a bit into their flesh. Sawyer was all hard angles, gristle, sinew and bone. His long nose pressed into my cheek; his bristle locked and fought with mine; he brought my hand up to the mean, predatory angle of his jaw, so I could feel his face even with my eyes closed, and know he was kissing me back, with long, hungry, cinematic kisses. He was a man of formidable and frightening intensity, and being at the focus of it made me a bit nervous. He kissed me as if he were drowning and I was pure oxygen. Then, too, there was the fact that I had not been used to kissing other lads. I had a history of fumbling, Catholic excursions – pants down, pricks out, jerking sucking fucking, as if it were some Olympic event where the gold medal went to the fastest runner. When Sawyer's mouth met mine, I had tried to turn away. But he held me down on the sand and kissed me, for what felt like hours, liking, I think, the surrender and specificity of the act. He liked to know that I knew he was there. I had been used before, and I understood his drive: to know that the person you're fucking is fucking you back, to know that you exist for them, not as a means to an end, but as a human being. So I kissed him, kissed him and kissed him, and once or twice I tried to say his name.

4.

The first time he entered me – That Way, you know, the way you don't tell your priest about – he was holding me, tight enough to bruise, his lean, well-practiced hands tilting my hips up as he pressed my shoulders down. I had been warmed up a bit – he was sweet for that, give the man credit – but not as much as I generally like, due to the fact that no vast lube freighters have crashed on the shores of Deathtrap Island. At first I was too tight around him, it all felt hot and uncomfortable, and the intimacy was overwhelming. I didn't really know him that well, I thought. He was a criminal – he acted like a criminal – he had robbed people, probably, maybe robbed banks, he might have killed someone, for all I knew. And we were both high-risk – me with syringes and groupies, him with God knew what all. He had packed rubbers, but the supply was finite. My mind was moving too far, too fast, into places that I didn't like, and I nearly ruined it. But then, he started moving, in long, patient, generous strokes, though his breath was coming fast, and I knew that, for him, as for me, it had been too long. The reality of holding him actually inside me, in the most private spaces I had, touching him and letting myself be touched, burst in my heart like a newborn star. When I came, my eyes were filled with light.

5.

"The name's James," he said, afterward.

"Is it really?" I said, surprised, as I tugged my battered jeans up over my hips.

"I'm just saying," he said, managing to sound defensive and reluctantly sweet at the same time. "Cause you said the other one, you know, and I don't like it. Not while I'm gettin' my freak on."

I laughed at the outdated slang. So did he, ducking his head down to hide it. We just sat there for a while, me half-clothed, him flagrantly naked, giggling like schoolboys at a dirty joke.

"Now you know," he said, finally, trying -- too hard -- for a note of warning. "So, if it happens again…"

"It'll happen again," I said, pulling my shirt on and turning to leave. "And I'll call you James."

5 ½.

During the day, we stayed away from each other. When we met, we faked a squabble. It felt safer than honesty. Cowardice usually does.

6.

And then he was gone. I watched the ocean and thought of him, with Aaron in my arms. The baby cried for both of us, cried for a voice that would not come back. I picked fights, volunteered for missions I knew I couldn't do properly, shouted at Hurley because he wouldn't give me a sodding jar of peanut butter. I took a Mary filled with heroin, and spent my nights wondering how long I could make it last, wondering if I could make it do until Sawyer came back. (I could stop if he would come back. I would stop if he could come back. _You always think you can stop,_ he said once, with hillbilly sagacity. _That's how it gets you_.) When I thought that he wouldn't come, I thought of overdose. Might as well do it all at a go, I thought. Go out with a blast.

On happier days, I pictured him sailing the seven seas, shirtless (for I am a shallow man), lured by mermaids and Tom of Finland pirates. When he did come back, with a rescue party – as he did, in the better dreams – I vowed to be true to him, to come out for good and all. I would use my fame to better the cause! (I would be - _will_ be - famous again. This is a given.) There would be scholarships! Concept albums! I would be Bowie, without the panicky midlife return to heterosexuality. And in my quiet moments, I vowed, I would walk beaches and city streets with him, hand in bloody hand, so help me. I would even learn his full name.

It did not occur to me that the raft might sink. I bless myself, in retrospect, for that. I thought of him renouncing me, leaving me, replacing me – but I never imagined him dying. That thread of hope pulled me through.

7.

I found the bottle three days ago - buried here, in the sand, like a hit and run victim in a shallow grave. Whoever hid it, hid it fast and poorly. The bottle was my bloody idea. You'd think that I'd be invited to its funeral. "Your hopes have been destroyed, that boyfriend we've been pretending not to know about is probably dead, please RSVP for the burial of your bleeding heart." Something in that line. Instead, I got nothing. But I come to visit it, still. I sit at the grave of sand with my unbroken Virgin and my child, and I tell stories. This is for you, James; this is the story that I tell the ocean until it brings you home.


End file.
